ACT PROMPTLY

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 118, 21 May 1942, Page 5

ACT PROMPTLY

WHARF CLEARANCE ADVICE TO IMPORTERS (0.C.) WELLINGTON, this day. The urgent need for the rapid clearance of wharf sheds was stressed by the president or the Wellington Chamber of Commerce, Mr. A. L. Wall, at a meeting of the chamber. "The problem is more serious than ever before, because the sheds have got to be cleared, and if we do not clear them by our own volition then they will have to be cleared by the Harbour Board," he said. It was the duty of everyone who had any idea that there might be goods for them on the wharf to find out and take action immediately.

One of the reasons for the congestion was the 40-hour week, resulting in some warehouses refusing to receive goods after three o'clock on Friday afternoon, he added. Another was delay in the receipt of documents from overseas.

Mr. F. Wilson said that to suggest that the warehouses were not coping with the situation satisfactorily was not getting at the real background of the difficulty. If there was stuff to be moved the warehouses were open and always had been. Real troubles were: Centralisation of overseas shipping at the two main North Island ports; lack of knowledge of when goods were arriving, because of delay in receipt of documents; difficulty in getting away coastwise transhipments from the centralised discharge, aggravated by military calls on shipping; lack of trucks and the labour to load them; conditions in the transport industry, where operators were going "eyes out" on essential jobs while at the same time key drivers were being called up for military service and they were sometimes short of petrol.